The former Boro defender paid the price for three years of underachievement at the club earlier this week, leaving his long-serving assistant Venus in charge for Friday night's meeting with Doncaster.

Summer signing Albert Adomah continued his hot streak by bringing up five goals in three games with a well-taken brace before half-time with another Mowbray signing, striker Kei Kamara, putting the result beyond doubt midway through the second half.

Daniel Ayala, who arrived on loan from Norwich on Tuesday, put the finishing touches to the impressive 4-0 victory but, while Venus exulted in the free-flowing football his first solo selection had produced, he insisted the departed Mowbray deserved an equal share of the credit.

He said: "I think the lads put a performance on and I think the fans and everyone at the club deserved that.

"I think we hadn't done as well as we should have done and I think everyone was a little bit accountable for the manager losing his job.

"I'm happy but I'm still sad with what's happened, there's a scar."

Adomah opened the scoring inside eight minutes, chipping over former Boro goalkeeper Ross Turnbull, and nine minutes before the break he headed home Richard Smallwood's cross.

Close-range finishes from Kamara and Ayala inspired chants of "Tony Mowbray's Red and White Army" from the bumper 21,882 crowd.

"They'll never forget him at the football club," Venus added. "It didn't work for him in this spell but he's a legend at this football club and deserves to be. That wasn't just my team, that was our team."

When asked about the goals, the Hartepudlian was happy to reply with "brilliant, brilliant, brilliant" but he remained cagey over his own chances of landing the manager's role on a permanent basis.

He said: "The chairman (Steve Gibson) will do what he thinks is best for Middlesbrough Football Club and while he's doing that I'll work hard to get the best out of these players for him."

Doncaster boss Paul Dickov, meanwhile, promised to root out the cause of his side's chronic capitulation on Teesside.

The Rovers enjoyed most of the possession in the first half but after being hit twice on the counter-attack, Dickov's defence went to pieces, leaving the Scot furious.

"Poor, really poor," was the former Oldham manager's frank assessment.

"For the first time since I've come here it's very hard to pick any positives out of it.

"We pride ourselves on our work-rate and desire without the ball and that was missing tonight.

"I'll find out and put it right because I'm not standing for it. They had more energy than us, they had more desire than us, and the result reflected that.

"They'll soon realise that I won't accept a performance like that."

Doncaster still have a game in hand over Middlesbrough, who are now 12th, but remain only four points clear of the relegation places.

Readers' Comments

I

t's wrong to be making a joke out of Bender's name at the expense of gay people. It's the kind of childish, uncivilised thing that Football365 would deride and ridicule if it was another media outlet saying. Why is there a need for jokes like this? Does it make your writers feel like men? F365 might suggest that I 'lighten up', but it is genuinely traumatic for people who have been oppressed all their lives to be the butt of jokes, and to be told...

ou can't blame De Gea for wanting to leave, he has enough to do in front of goal as it is as well as taking on the role of Man Utd's version of Derek Acorah in trying to contact and organise a defence that isn't there.